Alpinism has always been what I dreamed of pursuing. The alpine rock of this summer has got me close, but Nooksack tower confirmed my alpine ambitions. It's got a cascadian approach, some glacier slogging, steep snow climbing around bergschrunds, and finally alpine rock on top. And of course like any alpinism objective, there was endless suffering. I first saw Nooksack tower in my Nelson-potterfield book and was quickly fascinated by its striking character. With exposure on all sides, it begs for climbers. With a little beta from CascadeClimbers, Cole picked me up at the yarrow point station and we were off. We picked up some rappel rings, webbing, and a rope at the AAI shop in Bham before driving towards nooksack cirque TH.
My first true taste of alpinism
After sleeping in, we left the trailhead around 09:00. We took the wrong route along the creek but were quickly onto the old railbed, where the endless trail continued until we got to Nooksack river. The tree crossing from the year before was gone, so we bushwacked along the river to the normal ford. Cole went first, bringing the rope so we could set up a tyrolean for the packs. Giving the packs a dip, I completed the nut-freezing ford and put the heavy and now-wet rope back on my pack. So much for dry-treatments.
A shitty tyrolean + my pantless legs
Once across the river, we schwacked for hours, eating blueberries on the way. Eventually we reached the moraine, but quickly headed up some vertical schwacking to gain the ridge. From there, we traversed until we reached the rock slabs around 04:00 but with thunder nearby, we decided to set up a bivy and not go any higher. It would mean an extra 500 feet the next morning but we didn’t wanna risk it with the storms. It was a stunning, flat bivy with views of shuksan and the surrounding mountains. I was worried about the precipitation on my down bag but we were lucky and it missed us, with mosquitos attacking us instead.
Good old schwackin
We got going at 04:00 on saturday morning, prepared for a long day ahead of us. We quickly reached the 5900’ notch and descended onto the glacier with one rappel. From there we slogged after end-running a crevasse and after climbing over a snow-filled gaper, we were at the base of the steep snow by 06:00. Simul climbing with 4 pickets, we reached the top of the snow gully by 08:00 with the snow reaching 65 degrees near the top.
Cole Climbing up the final pitch of snow
After stashing the snow gear, I led the first pitch, over the chockstones in the right chimney, then a quick rightward traverse and up the easy slabs. From there, we took in coils to simul. There was very sparse protection and lots of loose rock. We gained the false ridge and worked our way up the gully, trying not to throw rockfall onto eachother. At one point, I kicked off a piece that hit coles backpack after he covered from my “rock” call. We worked our way left once possible, crossing a few ribs before reaching the summit around noon. It is certainly solo-able but the sheer amount of loose rock was unnerving. There were many death blocks precariously balanced, ready to fall from any force.
Cole leading a pitch
At the summit, we relaxed a bit before starting our rappels at 13:00. We backed up the rats nests and worked our way down with many double rope rappels, commonly getting the rope stuck during the pulls. On the final rappel down to snow, the rope got so stuck that the 3:1 wasnt getting us anywhere. Cole started jugging up the rope but 3 feet off the ground, it went loose. In hindsight, we should’ve done a 9:1 before considering jugging. Once we retrieved the ropes, we discovered Cole’s rope was coreshot from the pull. We still trusted it for rappelling but with the exposed core, it would have to be cut down after. By now, it was past 16:00 and we still had a lot of snow to get down. We cut some snow bollards into the moat and worked our way down the gully. Even after loosening the rope after the first rappel, we still had to use a microtrax to haul and retrieve the ropes after each rappel. By 18:00, we were down-climbing around the crevasses and after a quick slog and some exposed low 5th class scrambling onto the ridge, we got to camp at 20:30, 16.5 hours after leaving camp and 7.5 hours after starting the descent. We quickly scarfed down some food and got to bed.
On the summit with Shuksan in the background
Summit register
Bomber 2 nut anchors
Almost done with a long-ass day
The next day we woke up at 08:00 and were going by 08:30. Other than getting stung by a bee, the reproach was largely uneventful. The tyrolean went quicker, we were too lazy to take anything off for the river crossings, and we were back at the car by 12:30. All in all, it was an amazing trip into the alpine, and while we definitely complained about it a lot, it was my raddest alpine adventure and already has me excited to keep climbing.
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